TuneHaven How to tune a guitar
Standard tuning is E A D G B E, from the thickest string to the thinnest. Here are the exact pitches, the order to tune in, and the two mistakes that make a guitar sound wrong even when the tuner says it is right.
Standard tuning, low to high, is E A D G B E. The thickest string, nearest your face when you hold the guitar normally, is the low E. The thinnest is the high E, two octaves above it.
String names and numbers
Strings are numbered from the thinnest up: the high E is the 1st string and the low E is the 6th. Tabs and chord charts use those numbers, so it is worth having them straight before anything else.
To remember the names, any sentence whose words start E, A, D, G, B, E will do. “Eddie Ate Dynamite, Good Bye Eddie” is the one most teachers use, read from the thickest string to the thinnest.
No tuner to hand? Tuning by ear gets the strings in tune with each other from a single reference note.
The pitches
| String | Note | Frequency |
|---|---|---|
| 6th (thickest) | E2 | 82.41 Hz |
| 5th | A2 | 110.00 Hz |
| 4th | D3 | 146.83 Hz |
| 3rd | G3 | 196.00 Hz |
| 2nd | B3 | 246.94 Hz |
| 1st (thinnest) | E4 | 329.63 Hz |
Those frequencies assume concert pitch, where the A above middle C sits at 440 Hz. If you are playing with someone whose instrument is fixed at a different reference, see what A440 means.
The order to tune in
Start with the low E and work up to the high E. This matters more than it sounds like it should: every string you tighten pulls the neck forward slightly, which drops the pitch of the strings you already did. Going low to high means the strings most affected by that drift are the ones you check last.
Then go back and check the low E again. On a guitar that has been sitting in a cold car or has new strings on it, you may need two or three passes before everything settles.
Tuning up, not down
Always arrive at the target from below. If a string is sharp, loosen it well past the note and then bring it back up.
The reason is mechanical. String tension does not distribute evenly along the length of the string in one go; some of it sits in the nut slot and the tuning post until playing shakes it loose. If you arrive from above, that stored tension releases as you play and the note goes flat within a minute. Arriving from below leaves the string already stretched into place.
Two mistakes a tuner will not catch
The tuner is right and the chords still sound wrong. Open strings tuned perfectly do not guarantee fretted notes in tune. That is an intonation problem, not a tuning one: the saddle positions need adjusting so the string length matches the fret spacing. Test it by comparing the 12th-fret harmonic against the fretted 12th-fret note. If the fretted note is sharp, the string is too short and the saddle needs to move back.
You pressed too hard. On an acoustic especially, gripping a chord hard enough bends the strings sharp. If everything reads in tune open but a barre chord sounds sour, try the same chord with the lightest pressure that still gives a clean note.
Other guitar tunings
Guitar ships eleven guitar tunings, all free:
- Drop D and drop C for the heavier end of things
- Half step down and whole step down, standard tuning lowered as a block
- Open G and open D for slide, and DADGAD for folk fingerstyle
- 7-string and 8-string, which add a low B1 at 61.74 Hz and an F#1 at 46.25 Hz below the low E
- 12-string, where the lower four courses are octave pairs rather than unisons
The 12-string case is worth calling out, because a tuner that treats it as twelve separate strings will fight you. The bottom four courses pair each string with the octave above it (E2 with E3, A2 with A3, D3 with D4, G3 with G4), while the top two courses are unison pairs. That is twelve strings but only ten distinct pitches, and TuneHaven presents them as ten targets for exactly that reason: a unison pair cannot be tuned apart, so offering two targets for it would be nonsense.
If the tuner keeps changing its mind
A low E string has more energy in its overtones than in the note it is actually playing, and many tuners latch onto the loudest thing they hear. That is how you end up being told to tighten a low E that was already in tune. If that sounds familiar, it is an octave error, and it is the single most common way a tuner breaks a string.